Good vs Evil: Alignments and debating them.

[Nurgleburger]

I have an idea for a character that is essentially a debater or lawyer, who focuses on the topic of ethics and morality. More specifically, good vs evil and blurring the lines that separate the two. I've played this type of character once before, and was primarily met with OOC players trying to give lessons on the mechanics of alignments (I know how they function mechanically), and IC hand-waving dismissals, with arguments founded on poor attempts at RPing the explanations of book mechanics. I find this to be extremely meta, but I can understand characters essentially dismissing the idea that good and evil are essentially a mater of perspective. People in the world do this constantly when it comes to science and knowledge in general. If something doesn't fit into the social ecosystem they've constructed in their minds, they are generally not receptive to whatever that thing is.

That being said, I do have a concern that because of the "knee-jerk" reaction to a philosophical approach of an IC manifestation of game mechanics, that there would be no room for a character like a lawyer or debater to be taken seriously. For that matter, there would be nearly no room for a huge part of philosophy in general, due to the existence of OOC mechanics that dictate what good or evil is in the most strictest of sense.

To better explain what I'm talking about, I will present a hypothetical example: An old cleric of Lethandar is walking down a farm road at night after a long day healing the sick and injured in a nearby town. He sees a fire nearby and when he arrives there, he finds a farm house completely engulfed in the inferno. In the front yard are the bodies of a man, a woman, and a robed individual whose clothes bear the symbol of Velsharoon. From within the burning home, the cleric hears the cry of a young child. Being too old to brave the fires and hope to survive, and being completely drained of magic from his work in the town, the cleric searches the body of the presumed cultist and finds a scroll of Create Undead and Control Undead. The cleric is now presented with 2 options: Let the child burn to death in the fire, or cast create undead on one of the corpses and control it to send it into the house and save the child.

If the cleric refuses to use the scrolls, he has chosen to let the child die. If he chooses to use the scrolls and save the child, he has acted against his god's dogma. Can either action be preformed without being considered an evil act to his god? to society? etc etc.

These are the sorts of things this character would debate, but if there is no room for these sorts of things within the setting, I won't make the character. I'm just looking for some guidance on the subject so that I am not introducing a personality into BGTSCC that couldn't exist. I personally feel that since there is no Detect Alignment or Undetectable Alignment (to my knowledge), then there would be room for players to expand upon this with RP and character concepts.

DMs and anyone who is active in the RP community: Please advise! =P

[NegInfinity]

I have an idea for a character that is essentially a debater or lawyer, who focuses on the topic of ethics and morality. More specifically, good vs evil and blurring the lines that separate the two. I've played this type of character once before, and was primarily met with OOC players trying to give lessons on the mechanics of alignments (I know how they function mechanically), and IC hand-waving dismissals, with arguments founded on poor attempts at RPing the explanations of book mechanics. I find this to be extremely meta, but I can understand characters essentially dismissing the idea that good and evil are essentially a mater of perspective. People in the world do this constantly when it comes to science and knowledge in general. If something doesn't fit into the social ecosystem they've constructed in their minds, they are generally not receptive to whatever that thing is.

That being said, I do have a concern that because of the "knee-jerk" reaction to a philosophical approach of an IC manifestation of game mechanics, that there would be no room for a character like a lawyer or debater to be taken seriously. For that matter, there would be nearly no room for a huge part of philosophy in general, due to the existence of OOC mechanics that dictate what good or evil is in the most strictest of sense.

To better explain what I'm talking about, I will present a hypothetical example: An old cleric of Lethandar is walking down a farm road at night after a long day healing the sick and injured in a nearby town. He sees a fire nearby and when he arrives there, he finds a farm house completely engulfed in the inferno. In the front yard are the bodies of a man, a woman, and a robed individual whose clothes bear the symbol of Velsharoon. From within the burning home, the cleric hears the cry of a young child. Being too old to brave the fires and hope to survive, and being completely drained of magic from his work in the town, the cleric searches the body of the presumed cultist and finds a scroll of Create Undead and Control Undead. The cleric is now presented with 2 options: Let the child burn to death in the fire, or cast create undead on one of the corpses and control it to send it into the house and save the child.

If the cleric refuses to use the scrolls, he has chosen to let the child die. If he chooses to use the scrolls and save the child, he has acted against his god's dogma. Can either action be preformed without being considered an evil act to his god? to society? etc etc.

These are the sorts of things this character would debate, but if there is no room for these sorts of things within the setting, I won't make the character. I'm just looking for some guidance on the subject so that I am not introducing a personality into BGTSCC that couldn't exist. I personally feel that since there is no Detect Alignment or Undetectable Alignment (to my knowledge), then there would be room for players to expand upon this with RP and character concepts.

DMs and anyone who is active in the RP community: Please advise! =P

You can make this kind of character (perfect philosophy for true neutral), but you're going to have very hard time convincing anybody. If you do make this kind of character, I'd recommend to write in big red letters in your bio and ooc notice - "I know how d&d morality works". That'll save a bit of time.

The biggest problem here is that good and evil in D&D are physical forces and are not matter of perspective. Acts of evil (depending on their severity) cause nightmares, undead, opening portals to abyss, mutation of nearby creatures and change of weather. They are also absolute. A very smart or wise person can become aware of that, meaning that your character's logic can be easily destroyed in debate. However, that can lead to your character becoming faithless, for example. Which is also valid roleplay.

In your example, in both cases cleric will commit act of evil. Creation of undead can arguably be a worse offense than letting a child die, good deed does not cancel out evil deed (as described in book of exhalted deeds). However, that is why clerics atone. They are human and make mistakes, if their faith is somewhat good-aligned, they can atone for those mistakes (as long as that doesn't turn into habit). The valid "good" choice would probably be to rush into flames to save the child, despite being old - this way you won't break your vows, and you won't just watch the child die.

Basically, the bottom line is - feel free to make this kind of character, just do not expect to change the world, or convince anyone of your point being right. Because in D&D world this position would be misguided. High-level priest or wizard of good alignment (if roleplayed properly) could be well-versed in those matters and is very likely to tear your argument to pieces. Evil wizard or cleric simply might not care about something like that. Neutral could go as far as to say that your argument seimply doesn't matter at all, because both good and evil are parts of bigger picture, and correctly labelling them (which is good and which is evil) isn't really important.

[DM Eurydice]

You are free to make a character concept revolving around this, but I expect you'd struggle to gain any traction with it. If you want to go ahead with this, I would advice you read (or re-read) the first 20-30 pages or so of the book of Exalted Deeds, and look up the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting

Faerùn is a fantasy setting where Good and Evil are not only well defined concepts, but actual forces that are actively promoted by their servants. Anyone in doubt abut these matters, would seek out a priest to ask about ethics and moralities - not a debater or a lawyer.

I'm not saying you can't roll the concept, just that it won't be easy to make it work properly in a fantasy setting where religion plays such an instrumental part of the everyday life as it does in Forgotten Realms. As for your example, I don't see how that would gain you anything but risk being viewed as a necromancer or the very least a necromancer sympathiser?
- Actively summoning undead is irrefutably evil, regardless of the nobility of your cause.
- Failing to save someone isn't evil, it's regrettable, but it's not evil.

In the world of Faerùn, if you've been faithful to a goodly god, death is not a bad thing. You go to a paradise of your deity's making. Lathanderites are for example rarely raised from the dead, because they don't view death as a bad thing - only if they've left something unfinished, will their fellows try to return them, and the deceased accept the summons.


You're welcome to argue about it in character, and have your character believe that a different set of morals and ethics apply, but the majority of Faerùn will just shake their head or roll their eyes, if your character think he knows better than the gods. The servants of the good Gods will tell you that raising the dead is evil, and therefore you shouldn't do it. The servants of the evil Gods will tell you that raising the dead is evil, and therefore you should do it... there is very little middleground that's open to interpretation.

If anyone starts arguing with your OOC, politely ask them to take it up with the DMs if they disagree with your playstyle.

[DM Golem]

It has to be said, though, that there are not two alignments ("Good vs Evil"); there are nine, and the Law versus Chaos axis has a significant role in moral and theoretical questions. Even within each one of the nine alignments there are a range of different archetypes and emphases (I know Eurydice agrees with this). There IS room for debate about what the nature of good is, and what is correct behaviour. Similarly for evil. It is just that some acts are objectively evil, some objectively good.

Also I would add that the shallower faith that most commoners have will mean that for them good versus evil becomes perspective removed from the objective forces. For example, burning an orc village root and branch, whelps and females all, may well be a "good" thing to most commoners who are so afraid of orcs following the black orc war, even if they are regular petitioners to one of the Good temples in Baldur's Gate; but its not objectively a good act to kill non-combatants (the opposite). Its in this way that Good characters are set against the setting in the same way Evil characters are.

Divine characters will have a good handle on morality, and many PCs will, but the intellectual paradigm of the NPC population is likely to be perspective based. However, they might not affect your day to day experience interacting with PCs.

[Nurgleburger]

I wouldn't expect all PCs to be openly persuaded that a cleric of lathander who casts create undead is not preforming an evil act because of the intentions of the spell, It just made an easy quick example of the concept of the character; I.e. he would essentially play devil's advocate to the more grey actions in the world. I also would not be running around trying to get into arguments with PCs, because we all know where that would lead, hehe. I don't intend to play a character who actively seeks to stir the pot with every Tom, Rick, and Jane he encounters. It also wouldn't be played that this character knows better than the gods, but rather that there is more subjectivity to certain actions than the simple evil and good labels. Obviously there are very clear good actions and very clear evil actions, and its widely known what the majority of these are (mainly spells and following dogma of a specifically aligned god).

Admittedly, I primarily run pathfinder games, and the worlds I'm a PC in are homebrew so I'm more accustomed to less religious involvement in everyday life. I would essentially comprise a list of factually good and evil things that I would not touch, and play on the more neutral things, since a neutral character could be construed as evil or good depending on who was observing them, and during what part of their neutrality they were observed. A man who robs a bread stall to feed his family, for example, might be viewed as evil in deed by a local guard, but of course the man's family would probably see his actions as good because without them, they would starve. The topics are supposed to elicit more interaction than your typical "hows the weather" conversation, but I would explicitly avoid the ones where the actions are irrefutably, and mechanically, filed under either good or evil.

I'll edit this more from work, and I'm appreciative of both your responses. =P

[mireigi]

I wonder what alignment, if any, would fit the best for a PC with no morals at all. There is no joy to be found for the PC in their actions, no sense of accomplishment of any kind. There is no thought given to whether the action will help or hurt others or even the PC themselves. All the PC cares about is not being bored, and to that end, any action, big or small, good or evil, will suffice, and will be carried out until either completed or replaced by another more demanding or intriguing action.

Chaotic Neutral comes to mind, but I think even that might have some limitations in relation to being completely free of any morals. On the other hand, someone who would burn down an orphanage with everyone trapped inside if asked, is clearly Evil.

Anyone got any ideas?

[Grimcheese]

I'd say Neutral/Chaotic Evil. The PC's motivation is entirely selfish, and he doesn't have any moral compunctions regarding whatever course of action he wants to take.

More towards the topic at hand: It's already been seen that the gods, while powerful, are fallible; they're more like very powerful people rather than actual omnipotent beings. They have strict visions on what is and what is not A-okay with their dogma, they have been known (granted, in the future) to succumb to flaws of character, and they can die. While the cosmos has an absolute opinion regarding certain deeds (e.g. summoning a Balor is evil, regardless if you're using it to raze a village or use it to save an orphanage full of children), it's possible to still argue the finer details.

I'd say a lawyer/debater can still function in the FR setting, especially if he has to deal with the more morally ambiguous topics.

/ramble

[NegInfinity]

Admittedly, I primarily run pathfinder games, and the worlds I'm a PC in are homebrew so I'm more accustomed to less religious involvement in everyday life.

Don't be mistaken about it, good and evil is not religious matter. Relegious matters - meaning god's dogmas - are entirely different topic.

In D&D game good/evil law/chaos are fundamental forces of universe. Gods, because they are not omnipotent, do not dictate what is good or evil, but they can dictate their dogmas.

I wonder what alignment, if any, would fit the best for a PC with no morals at all.

Any non-lawful. Probably also non-good. "Non lawful" because even if character follows just a single law of sorts you could call it a "moral" code. True neutral seems to be the most suitable. Kinda like animals in nature - they only fend for themselves, technically have no morality, which makes them true neutral.

[Nurgleburger]

I hadn't realized that good and evil weren't simply concepts, but fundamental laws of the universe, and to argue them would be like arguing to a scientist that spectra lines are actually just determinate of what colors your brain dislikes. I had still intended to debate the more ambiguous areas of morality, or the gaps between the good/evil/chaotic/lawful forces in play. Also, just to clarify, I had never intended to play the character as if he knew better than the gods. Though the gods are more akin to your traditional norse/greek/roman pantheon in the fact that they are given human personalities and have flaws and make mistakes or at the very least, have regrets and change their minds, I wasn't going to be traipsing about declaring gods to be derps who don't know any better.

Also, I realize that "Lawyer" is probably not the best word to use. I think Philosopher is probably a better image of what this character would be. He isn't selling services to people to get them out of jail, or trying to openly instigate debates with PCs just for the heck of it. He would be more of a professor or something of that nature. Someone who studies morality and ethics and debates it to gain a further understanding of it. I think long-term I would want this character to be considered an expert in interpretation of ethics and morality in the absence of a god or higher power. Maybe not someone you would go to if you were worried about praying to Talos to spare your family, but in effect your prayers would make him stronger.. but someone who would teach/explain/converse about the idea that not everything in the world is as black and white as they might have thought.


As a side note, the forums are requiring my posts to be approved by a DM, so if they seem to pop up late or it looks like I ignored someone's response, I can assure you I've not. It just takes an expected amount of time for my posts to get approval. I can only assume its because I have a low post count and the forum is doing this to prevent spammers and bots.

[DM Ioulaum]

Don't be mistaken about it, good and evil is not religious matter. Relegious matters - meaning god's dogmas - are entirely different topic.

In D&D game good/evil law/chaos are fundamental forces of universe. Gods, because they are not omnipotent, do not dictate what is good or evil, but they can dictate their dogmas.

In the Forgotten Realms deities actually do dictate what good and evil are to some extent. When it concerns the purpose of actions and measurements of selfishness / selflessness what the deity ordains is usually considered as right or wrong.

The novels for example portray a group of Paladins slaughtering a bunch of Elves because they refused to allow the Paladins passage through their forest home. Yet this was not an evil act because the mission was divinely ordained. It was necessary for the greater good, according to the deity. Hence deities often end up determining what the greater good is, in a given matter. And by doing so they control the moral spectrum to some extent.

The greater good in Faerun is described during the Time of Troubles as 'keeping the balance'. It is then revealed that all deities are charged by Ao to fulfill their portfolio to the best of their abilities, loyally, to maintain a balance between all the forces they represent. The evil deities are conflicted in that mission because their charge is (usually) to cause chaos and destruction, to upset the balance. So it could be argued they are evil in order to do their job right. They have to be evil.

In other D&D settings deities have less influence over alignment and morality. In those universes there is usually some sort of objective standard for good and evil, of which the deities themselves are part. So in a way they are not really deities, because they subservient to some universal cosmic principle of good and evil. But ofcourse deities from the Forgotten Realms are also limited in power. They aren't omnipotent.

[mrieder79]

The OP is one of the most interesting RP concepts I have run into on this server. It is disappointing that the character won't be rolled. Interesting discourse of this nature and on this level are rare and very rewarding. Please let me know if you roll this toon. My lawful neutral monk would be very interested in discussing things with you.

P.S. I love your screen name.

[NegInfinity]

The novels for example portray a group of Paladins slaughtering a bunch of Elves because they refused to allow the Paladins passage through their forest home. Yet this was not an evil act because the mission was divinely ordained. It was necessary for the greater good, according to the deity. Hence deities often end up determining what the greater good is, in a given matter. And by doing so they control the moral spectrum to some extent.

Novels are not a valid source of lore, and your example demonstrates why.
Paladins are special case because they're bound by both their code and desire to do good.
So when ordered, paladin may be forced to commit evil deed. That would be still evil deed. However, disobeying the code would be chaotic act, and following such order would be evil act.

The power of good and evil would be above gods, in my opinion.

Also, book of exhalted deeds explicitly states that this kind of thing does not work. You cannot commit evil in the name of greater good. They do not cancel each other out. The moment a good character commits evil in the name of greater good, balance shifts in favor of evil. Vows are not trading commodities.

[DM Ioulaum]

Also, book of exhalted deeds explicitly states that this kind of thing does not work

The book of exalted deeds is not Faerun / Forgotten Realms specific. Specific sources override general sources every time.

Apart from that rule the normal order to determine authority of Forgotten Realms specific material is Source book > Novel > Game. But in practice this is not accurate because Ed Greenwood (the creator) writes both source books and novels, and his novels sometimes elucidate on things contained in source books that you wouldn't otherwise have understood. Or they introduce new things all together, or replace old events or mechanics. In which case the novels override old source books.

[Storm Munin]

@NegInfinity

So all the things that have occured in novels in accordance to FR timeline and FR source books in the way the novels describe them did not happen?

Novels directed by the gaming company at explaining the world, a local area and recent changes in general (Neverwinter) in support of a computer game release is deemed not lore by your definition.

A novel approach.


As for ingame debating Good and Evil I see no issue with it, beyond the somewhat rough time a moral philosopher would have in ever changing a worshippers mind on anything ordained by dogma.
Heresy might become an issue with those favoring violent solutions though.

In essence we already have that line of rp with the pestering nature PC:s trying to stop adventurers from killing monsters at the cloakwood swamp and other places.
Orc, drow, necromancer, warlock and tiefling (with obvious heritage features) cuddling should count here as well.


/M

[mireigi]

All of the novels aren't sources of lore, although a great many of them are. However, all of the novels are canon examples of what is possible to do given the right situation.

Do paladins slaughter elves all the time when they refuse them passage? No, absolutely not. But in some cases they might do it because they are bound by an oath to their god, who tell them to use any means they deem necessary.